It is recognised that Indigenous communities are likely to be impacted by Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) wind farm developments. This work conducted a desktop study to identify Traditional Owner interests in areas adjacent to current ORE development areas. The purpose of the work was to gauge the extent of existing knowledge on cultural values and list appropriate avenues for future engagement with Traditional Owners to better understand the potential impact of ORE developments. This included identifying existing Sea Country plans for these communities, identifying existing information on cultural values, investigating Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property, and further notes on preferred methods of engagement for these Indigenous communities potentially impacted by ORE developments. This raw spreadsheet of compiled information is withheld due to cultural sensitivities, but a synthesis of information is available in the Project 3.3 final report: see sections 4.8, 5.8, 6.8, 7.8 & 8.8 (https://www.nespmarinecoastal.edu.au/publication/guiding-research-and-best-practice-standards-for-the-sustainable-development-of-offshore-renewables-and-other-emerging-marine-industries-in-australia). Please contact the NESP Data Wrangler (Southern node) to discuss access to the raw spreadsheet of information: Emma.Flukes@utas.edu.au

This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub project "Evaluation of recreational fishing behaviour, use, values and motivations that relate to compliance". No data outputs were generated by this project. -------------------- Recreational fishing is an important leisure activity in Australia that delivers important social and economic benefits to the community. As the largest and most widely dispersed natural resource-based recreational activity in the country, it is subject to management strategies including bag limits, quotas, and no-take zones. Given the prohibitive cost of deploying compliance officers to monitor Australia’s vast marine estate, strategies are needed to encourage voluntary compliance from fishers. This project explored behavioural interventions to promote self-compliance among recreational fishers, focusing on no-take zones within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and two Commonwealth parks off Western Australia (Geographe and Two Rocks). The research distributed more than 800 online surveys, followed up by focus groups and analysis to examine how demographics, motivations and fishing patterns influence fishers' intentions to comply with zoning rules. Survey insights were used to pilot a new targeted approach to awareness campaigns. Using behavioural segmentation, the project tailored messaging to specific audience types and tested these via GBRMPA social media channels. The project also examined perceptions of compliance visibility and found fishers were more likely to comply when uniformed officers were present and engaged directly at ramps or on water. The project outcomes provide a foundation for evidence-based behavioural interventions and targeted communication campaigns. It delivers a proof of concept for scalable, audience-specific behaviour change approaches that can be refined, implemented, and evaluated in future research. Outputs • Fact sheet - characterising recreational fishing population [written] • Final project report [written]

This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub Emerging Priorities project "National assessment of harmful algal bloom preparedness and future needs". No data outputs are planned for this project. -------------------- The 2025 South Australian harmful algal bloom (HAB) highlighted major gaps in Australia’s preparedness for large-scale marine HAB events, including limitations in surveillance capability, forecasting systems, coordination arrangements and long-term response planning. While HABs are not new to Australia, the scale, duration and ecological impacts of the South Australian event demonstrated the need for a broader national assessment of HAB science capability and policy readiness. This project will review Australia’s current capability for HAB surveillance, forecasting, response and management across environmental and seafood-safety domains. It will examine existing monitoring systems, research capability, early-warning approaches, coordination arrangements and operational policy settings across Commonwealth, state and territory jurisdictions. The review will consider lessons from the South Australian bloom alongside national and international approaches to HAB preparedness and management, including monitoring technologies, forecasting systems and risk mitigation strategies. It will also consider relevant recommendations from the Australian Senate inquiry into the South Australian algal bloom and broader national policy frameworks, including the draft Sustainable Ocean Plan. Project outputs will include an assessment of current national HAB capability, identification of critical knowledge and operational gaps, and recommendations for improving HAB preparedness, surveillance, forecasting, coordination and response capacity in Australia. Outputs • Final technical report [written]

The data represents the results of a national model of boat-based recreational fishing effort (number of trips) around Australia. The model reflects boat-based line fishing trips in marine waters and is reported on a 5x5 nautical mile grid to a distance of 100 km from the Australian coastline. The model includes two parts: (i) allocation of fishing trips from a reporting region to individual boat ramps and (ii) allocation of fishing trips from boat ramps to adjacent marine waters. Raw fishing effort data could not be made available. Aggregated effort data is supplied as summary plots in the final report: https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/document/social-and-economic-benchmarks-australian-marine-parks

The Australasian Coastal Restoration Network (ACRN) database collates information about coastal restoration projects in eight different ecosystems across Australia and New Zealand: shellfish, macroalgae, seagrass, mangrove, saltmarsh, coastal wetland and coral environments. This record represents a static snapshot of the database made in March 2020. The ACRN website (https://www.acrn.org.au) may contain more recent updates to the database.

This report provides an assessment of the social and economic status and performance of Tasmanian fisheries and aquaculture, 2017/18 to 2020/21. Tasmania’s fisheries and aquaculture sectors (i.e., commercial, recreational and Tasmanian Aboriginal businesses and users) are important parts of the Tasmanian economy and broader community and generate a diverse range of social and economic benefits. Achieving economic and social benefits from marine resources is an objective of fisheries and marine farming (aquaculture) management in Tasmania, as outlined in the Living Marine Resources Management Act 1995 (hereafter referred to as LMRMA) and the Marine Farming Planning Act 1995 (hereafter referred to as the MFPA). The indicators used in this assessment reflect this legislative objective as well as best-practice (for example, see NOAA Fisheries Socioeconomics, PIRSA Social and Economic Assessments). They were chosen to be relevant to managing sector-wide and community outcomes from these fisheries and aquaculture activities. This report does not attempt to benchmark performance. It is intended to inform industry and sector representative organisations, government agencies with policy and regulatory responsibilities, other marine research groups, and interested members of the Tasmanian community, of social and economic outcomes and change in those outcomes across time. This is the first assessment report of this type. It follows from an initial pilot assessment of Tasmanian fisheries (Ogier et al. 2018) and is intended to be one of a series. The period of time covered by this assessment (2017/18 - 2020/21) encompasses both the period prior to and across the COVID-19 pandemic. The impacts of the pandemic on economic and social indicators for these sectors is therefore captured. This assessment encompasses commercial, recreational, and Tasmanian Aboriginal community sectors using managed marine resources. The findings are based on a range of assessment and research activities undertaken by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) of the University of Tasmania. Specific fisheries and aquaculture sectors assessed are: Tasmanian Abalone Fishery, Tasmanian Giant Crab Fishery, Tasmanian Rock Lobster Fishery, Tasmanian Scalefish Fishery, Tasmanian Scallop Fishery, Tasmanian Abalone Aquaculture, Tasmanian Pacific Oyster Aquaculture and Tasmanian Salmonid Aquaculture.